Archaeologists working in the Bale Mountains of Ethiopia have uncovered the earliest evidence to date of human habitation in a high-altitude environment. Living over 11,000 feet above sea level, these early mountaineers ate rodents to survive the harsh ice age conditions.
An amateur astronomer in Texas captured a rare sight earlier this week when an apparent meteor slammed into Jupiter’s thick upper atmosphere.
New evidence shows that Goliath frogs—the world’s largest species of frog—construct their own ponds, providing a safe space for their tadpoles to grow.
Grains and water from Chernobyl’s dreaded exclusion zone have been used to produce a single bottle of vodka. Called ATOMIK, the vodka could revolutionize the way land is reclaimed in the radioactive region surrounding the beleaguered nuclear power plant.
The cooling effects of large volcanic eruptions have led some scientists to believe these natural hazards could inspire and inform the development of geoengineering schemes to combat climate change. New research suggests this is probably a bad idea.
The Curiosity team is calling it “Strathdon”—a boulder-sized Martian rock comprised of dozens of sedimentary layers. Its discovery suggests the area being explored by the NASA rover is more geologically complex than is typically appreciated.
Two weeks after entering solar sailing mode, the Planetary Society’s LightSail 2 spacecraft has managed to raise its orbit by nearly 2 miles, in an important test of this promising new means of propulsion.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has shut down a leading military research facility for failing to meet established safety standards, halting important research into some of the world’s most dangerous pathogens and toxins.
A collaborative research team claims their artificially intelligent system should be recognized as the rightful inventor of two innovative designs, in a potentially disruptive development in patent law.
An international collaboration is claiming to have created hybridized human-monkey embryos in China. Disturbingly, the research could result in monkeys capable of producing human organs for transplants, leading to a host of ethical concerns.
This hot Jupiter is so close to its host star that gravitational forces are squeezing it into a football-like shape. Not only that, its temperatures are so extreme that heavy metal gases are escaping into space from the exoplanet’s atmosphere—a phenomenon never seen before until now.
A team of Polish astronomers has created the most accurate three-dimensional map of the Milky Way to date, revealing surprising distortions and irregularities along the galactic disk.
There are now less than 19 individual vaquita porpoises left in the wild, according to an alarming new survey. Scientists say immediate measures are now required to save this enigmatic species from extinction.
A newly released video from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) shows the critical moment when the Hayabusa2 spacecraft made contact with the surface of the Ryugu asteroid for an unprecedented second time.
The surprising discovery of a fragment inscribed with an old German poem, in which a female virgin argues with her genitals about who is more desirable to men, pushes the origin of the poem back 200 years, changing our conceptions of sexuality in the Middle Ages.
More than 200 reindeer starved to death this past winter on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. The scientists who made the grim discovery say climate change is the likely culprit.
The suggestion that humans will soon set up bustling, long-lasting colonies on Mars is something many of us take for granted. What this lofty vision fails to appreciate, however, are the monumental—if not intractable—challenges awaiting colonists who want to permanently live on Mars. Unless we radically adapt our…
Earlier this month, Florida’s conservation authority urged homeowners to exterminate invasive green iguanas “whenever possible,” without the need for permits. The accidental shooting of a pool maintenance worker by an iguana hunter has now prompted state officials to clarify that directive, saying Florida is not the…
Two years after a mysterious cloud of radiation swept through Europe, a team of scientists has pinpointed the source of the leak to a nuclear reprocessing plant in Russia, which was preparing materials for an Italian physics experiment at the time.
A new Gallup poll shows that 40 percent of American adults comply to a strict view of creationism, in which God brought humans into existence within the last 10,000 years. More encouragingly, a record number of Americans now say God had absolutely nothing to do with it.
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